


He Remembers, Until He Doesn't

by madnessiseverything



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Episode: s02e08 And the Point of Salvation, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, big one, during point of salvation, not too graphic but definitely and clearly there, wrote this on a whim just now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 06:11:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13183998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnessiseverything/pseuds/madnessiseverything
Summary: Ezekiel doesn’t remember when he stopped counting. He doesn’t remember and that terrifies him. He’s staring at the blaring lights, the alarm ringing, repeating, looping in his head. He’s staring at it through the reflection that hides his friends from his gaze and doesn’t remember when he stopped counting.or where Ezekiel has a panic attack and the loops are too many to count.





	He Remembers, Until He Doesn't

**Author's Note:**

> this was written in an hour and is now being posted straight away so apologies for any mistakes. this is a big mess but it's supposed to be, i promise. 
> 
> please read the tags before diving in.   
> i hope you enjoy!

Ezekiel doesn’t remember when he stopped counting. He doesn’t remember and that terrifies him. He’s staring at the blaring lights, the alarm ringing, repeating,  _ looping _ in his head. He’s staring at it through the reflection that hides his friends from his gaze and doesn’t remember when he stopped counting.    
  
His chest feels heavy, rib cage tightening around his lungs like a vice. He remembers this feeling, remembers the loop it first happened in. It was the 7th, he knew because he has been counting and he remembers it. Until he no longer does. He remembers the number 43, but he also remembers it not being the one before this one. He remembers, but he doesn’t.    
  
The feeling is worse this time. His breaths are fast but there isn’t enough oxygen to satisfy his starving lungs. His chest hurts, hurts with every movement and he needs to sit down but he can’t move, it hurts, hurts so badly. His heart speeds up and the space in his chest seems to grow smaller and smaller. His knees hit something hard but he doesn’t really register it because his chest hurts, oh god it hurts.    
  
Finally his hands obey him and he’s clawing at his torso. Maybe he can pull it apart, give his lungs back the room that’s been stolen. His fingers tear at his shirt and he can’t breathe. His chest hiccups and Ezekiel needs it to stop. He can’t. He needs to find a way to save his friends, they need to get out. He has to get them out. But his chest hurts and his lungs are screaming. Or maybe that’s him, but he can’t bring himself to care because his vision is fading and all he feels is pain. He needs to give his lungs the space.    
  
Material tears underneath his desperate hands but his lungs, his body, only ache more and more and then something else tears below his scrabbling fingers. There is more pain, pain that blinds Ezekiel and hot waves crash into him but there still isn’t enough space behind his ribs so he pulls and digs deeper. There is something in the air now, metallic and terrible but there is no time to think, he has to get air back into his lungs. He has to.    
  
There is so much pain now, sharp and clear. There is something wet on his face and now his hands too and his vision blurs, but those black edges are gone, he thinks.    
  
He chokes and his chest convulses and oh god it hurts, it hurts so bad. Why isn’t it getting better, he’s pulling so hard. There is red in his vision but it’s not flashing like the lights. It’s bright and it’s covering him as his head drops down. His hands no longer feel like his own and he can’t bring them to pull anymore. His heart pushes against his lungs, quick little stabs puncturing his insides and it hurts.    
  
And then the black is back and he no longer sees the red but the pain is still there. He doesn’t remember. Oh god he lost count.    
  
He no longer sees and then the pain is gone.    
  
Ezekiel feels a push and his eyes snap open and he is stumbling through that god forsaken door for another time. And he doesn’t remember which number he is in now. But one of the others is talking and god he needs to get them out. His hands shake but he turns around and speaks, tells them all he’s told them all the other times. They don’t believe and he remembers that they never do. Then they’re moving past him and Ezekiel doesn’t follow. He sinks down onto the ground and stares at the red lights. His hands rest against his chest and he swallows, the feeling of his own hands tearing into his skin so vivid in his mind that his hands itch and his skin crawls.    
  
But his mind doesn’t care. The lights are red and his blood was too, staining his hands in ways that remind him too much of the first time his old handler told him to kill. He remembers, too well. The trembling hands, the first shot that didn’t kill and forced him to shoot again. The way he had thrown up, hands on the ground and him realizing too late that they were planted in blood.    
  
And he remembers how those same hands tried to rip apart his own skin just moments before, digging into his torso like the claws of a beast the Library would need to get rid off.    
  
He hears screams and he isn’t sure if it’s his memory or if the others found the monsters that haunt this cursed place again. His hands are shaking and he knows he will be stumbling again soon, Cassandra’s cries definitely not within his mind anymore. He doesn’t look up. His eyes close.    
  
He doesn’t remember the loop he first heard those cries. He doesn’t remember other things and he hates that he can’t. The numbers, the screams, which one of them died first ten loops ago. He doesn’t remember everything, not anymore and his heart quickens again and he wraps his arm around himself.    
  
He’s shaking apart and his vision blurs again, tears streaming down his face. He hates that this isn’t the first time it happens, it’s not the first time he is utterly weak while his friends, his  _ family  _ fight for their lives only a room away. He remembers that part.    
  
He remembers all the times he abandoned them in terrible fashion. He doesn’t remember when he started it, only remembers that he’s done it again and again. Because it doesn’t matter, does it? It doesn’t matter because it resets. It resets, again and again.    
  
It reset when he let Jake step onto the electrified floor plate, it reset when the Ragers tackled Baird and tore Cassandra out of his arms. It reset when they ripped Jake’s arm clean off, it reset when Cassandra was mauled by them in front of his eyes.    
  
It reset when Ezekiel shot three clean shots, desperately hoping it would shatter the cycle they had found themselves in, hoping for release. It reset when he used the same bullets for himself.    
  
He remembers everything about those times, but there have been so much more. There had been so many loops in between those terrible, terrible ones, and he doesn’t remember them all.    
  
His eyes burn behind his closed lids and his arms tighten around himself. He wants to laugh at how only minutes ago he was desperate to tear himself apart just for one breath while now the very same hands that dug into his skin are holding him together as if he could crumble apart at any moment.    
  
And maybe he could. He remembers that it has felt like that so many times before, had felt like he was falling apart in more ways than one, the disbelief of his friends shattering any will and hope, again and again.    
  
Ezekiel breathes glass by now and his lungs are filled with blood but at least he’s breathing. He remembers that he doesn’t always do that.   
  
His body jerks and he stumbles. Red lights flash and alarms are blaring and Cassandra is talking.    
  
And Ezekiel doesn’t remember how many times they’ve done this now. 

**Author's Note:**

> so that happened. i don't know what about today made me decide to write something about PoS. it's been a "write pain" sort of day. drop by my [jassekiel tumblr](https://sliceofheavenofmine.tumblr.com/) and have a chat with me.


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